THE BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA) said on Tuesday that a statement released by the Ministry of Citizens’ Services which claims that “new legislative changes improve transparency and accountability for British Columbians” is a significant misrepresentation of an effective duty to document and is a distraction from the pressing reforms that are necessary for BC’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA).

Creating a legislated duty to document within FIPPA was called for by an all-party Special Legislative Committee that reviewed the Act in 2016, and by Information and Privacy Commissioners David Loukidelis and Elizabeth Denham.

These “new” legislative changes that NDP minister Jinny Sims is promoting were actually initiated by the Liberal party in 2017. At that time, FIPA issued a press release that called the Liberal bill “a sad excuse for action on creating a duty to document government decisions” in the wake of the ‘Triple Delete’ scandal that revealed an organized campaign to destroy government records.

FIPA said that, in fact, the NDP put forward a private member’s bill at that time that proposed an actual duty to document in comparison to the Liberal’s ineffective bill.

In a statement issued by the Ministry of Finance in 2017, Liberal Minister Michael de Jong had claimed that their ineffective bill would “formalize this good practice in legislation while ensuring that British Columbia remains at the forefront of information management with strong oversight and consistent practice across government.”

Now, two years later, NDP Minister Jinny Sims is claiming that the same ineffective legislative change also “formalizes government’s obligation to document decisions and helps ensure records of decisions are available and accessible.” FIPA said the statements from the NDP and Liberal MLAs, made two years apart, are remarkably similar and entirely misleading.

FIPA said it wants to see the creation of a meaningful duty to document–more in line with what the NDP was proposing two years ago–which would include:

– The creation of mandatory documentation procedures. A discretionary duty to document is not sufficient.
– Clear oversight from the Information and Privacy Commissioner.
– The legislative change should be to the FIPPA, which affects over 2,900 public bodies, not the Information Management Act, which merely affects 41.